Quick Quiz: Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden

This August the Edinburgh Festival celebrates its 70th anniversary. To mark the occasion, we have asked a plethora of performers about their personal Fringe experiences. Today Barrie Cryer and Ronnie Golden, Fringe legends who are in town for just two performances this year.

TW: What was you first ever experience of the Edinburgh Fringe?
RG: My first Fringe show was compering a mixed bill in a dingy room in a masonic lodge in 1984, struggling to get a crowd while Rory Bremner’s audience snaked down the stairs and out onto the street!
BC: Doing a show with Willie Rushton – reviewed as “Barry Cryer and his surly sidekick” – we should have called the show ‘When Barry Met Surly’.

TW: What’s the best thing you’ve ever seen performed at the Fringe?
RG: I still have good memories of Archaos and their juggling chainsaws to a scary soundtrack of repeated discordant sounds.
BC: David Benson’s show about Lockerbie – it was superb.

TW: What’s the worst thing you’ve ever seen performed at the Fringe – so bad it was good?
RG: A celebration of the songs of Scottish singer-songwriter Donovan Leitch performed by a happy clappy choir of US West Coast Christians. Arse-clenchingly awful and hilarious at the same time.

TW: Which of the Fringe shows you performed in do you most fondly remember – and why?
RG: A kids’ show at The Pleasance called ‘Dogman’ written by John Dowie with songs by Neil Innes. I played Mrs Hawkins, the postmistress in blonde wig, fishnets and high heels. I probably enjoyed it a bit TOO much!

TW: Name a Fringe performer – past or present – who you’d like to join on stage?
RG: Johnny Immaterial, another musical stand up, who used wicked wordplay with a great ear for the silliness around us.
BC: Count Arthur Strong, I’ve worked with him on TV and radio, but never live. Would love to interview him live and fail to understand his answers!

TW: Other than performing and seeing shows, what is your favourite thing to do in Edinburgh during August?
RG: Drink.
BC: And admire the Loft Bar at The Gilded Balloon!

Barry Cryer and Ronnie Golden perform ‘Just The Two At Six’ at Gilded Balloon Teviot on 15 and 16 Aug.